Chapter 27: WWII
By: Sarah Phillips
Map of Europe Before the War
Before the War (1933-1939)


Hitler’s Role
 Germans were threatened by the Slavs. Aryans were the
superior race.
 Believed in Lebensraum
 Russian Revolution created conditions for Germany’s
acquisition of the east.
“Diplomatic Revolution” (1933-1936)
 Hitler became chancellor of Germany Jan. 30, 1933
 Emphasized that Germany only wanted to revise the
Versailles treaty by peaceful means.
 Oct. 1933 Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of
Nations.
Before the War

“Diplomatic Revolution”
 Hitler believed France and Britain wouldn’t take action
against him.
 March 9, 1935 Hitler announced the creation of a new air
force and the introduction of a military draft that would
expand the army from 100,000 to 550,000.
 France, Great Britain, and Italy warned Hitler but no action
was taken.
 Germany agreed to the Anglo-German Naval Pact June 18,
1935.

The pact allowed Germany to build a navy that would be 35% of the
size of the British navy with equal submarines.
Before the War

“Diplomatic Revolution”
 British started a policy of appeasement based on their desire
to avoid war.
 March 7, 1936 Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland. France
didn’t act because they needed the support of Britain.
 Oct 1936 Mussolini and Hitler made the Rome-Berlin Axis.
 Nov. 1936 Germany and Japan made the Anti-Comintern
Pact
 “Diplomatic Revolution” was achieved by the end of 1936
Before the War

Path to War in Europe (1937-1939)
 Nov. 5, 1937, Hitler announced his future aims: conquest of
living space in the east.
 Chamberlain, prime minister of Britain, was a strong
advocate of appeasement.
 Hitler threatened Austria with an invasion and coerced the
Austrian chancellor, von Schuschnigg, into putting Austrian
Nazis in control.
 The new Austrian government invited German troops to
enter Austria,
 March 13, 1938, Hitler annexed Austria to Germany.
Before the War

The Path to War in Europe
 Germany asked for the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia that
was home to 3 million Germans.
 Sept. 15, 1938 Hitler demanded the cession of the
Sudetenland to Germany with threats of “world war.”
 At the Munich Conference, Sept. 29, the British, French,
Germans and Italians reached an agreement that met all of
Germany’s goals.
 German troops were allowed to occupy the Sudetenland,
 Was the high point of Western appeasement of Hitler.
 Chamberlain boasted that the agreement meant “peace
for our time.”
Before the War

The Path to War in Europe
 Hitler prepared for full liquidation of Czechoslovakia Oct.
1938
 The Slovaks declared their independence of the Czechs and
became a puppet state of Germany.
 Hitler began to demand the return to Germany of Danzig.
Britain offered to protect Poland in the event of war.
 France and Britain began to make political and military
negotiations with Stalin but had no success.
 Hitler ordered Germany to prepare for the invasion of
Poland on Sept. 1, 1939.
Before the War


The Path to War in Europe
 Hitler negotiated a non-aggression pact with Stalin on Aug.
13, 1939.
 Hitler would conquer west Poland while the Soviets
conquered the east.
 Britain and France declared war on Germany Sept. 3, 1939.
 Sept. 17 the Soviets sent troops into east Poland.
The Path to War in Asia
 By the early 1930s Japan was experiencing severe internal
tensions.
Before the War

The Path to War in Asia
 Population rose from 30 million in 1870 to 80 million by
1937
 Tariff barriers made by Western nations in the 1930s
devastated Japan economically and politically.
 Right-wing patriotic societies allied themselves with the army
and navy to push a program of expansion at the expense of
China and the Soviet Union, while the navy hoped to
conquer British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.
 In 1935, Japan began to construct a modern naval fleet, and
after 1936, the armed forces exercised much influence over
government.
Before the War

The Path to War in Asia
 Sept 1931. Japanese soldiers seized Manchuria/Manchuko.
 League of Nations condemned Japan, so Japan withdrew.
 Japanese were granted authority to administer areas of North China but
conflicts arose.
 July 1937 a clash between Chinese and Japanese forces broke out at the
Marco Polo Bridge. Was a major conflict.
 Japanese advanced up the Yangtze valley and seized the Chinese capital
on Nanjing but Kai-shek refused to capitulate and moved his government
to Hankou.
 When Japanese occupied Indochina in July 1941, the Americans cut off
sales of scrap iron and oil to Japan.
 The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor out of spite for America’s actions.
The Course of WWII

Victory and Stalemate
 Hitler unleashed a Blitzkrieg and stunned Europe with its
speed and efficiency.
 Panzer divisions supported by airplanes quickly broke
through Polish lines.
 Regular infantry units then moved in to hold the newly
conquered land.
 Soon after, Soviet forces attacked eastern Poland. Poland
surrendered within 4 weeks.
 Sept 28, 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union officially
divided Poland between them.
The Course of WWII

Victory and Stalemate
 Between 1930 and 1935 France built the Maginot Line
along its border with Germany.
 After a winter of waiting for attack (“phony war”) Hitler
resumed war on France April 9, 1940 with another Blitzkrieg
against Denmark and Norway.
 May 10, the Germans launched their attack on the
Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
 The main assault through the Ardennes forest and
Luxembourg was a surprise. They broke through the Maginot
Line and raced across northern France.
The Course of WWII

Victory and Stalemate
 The French troops and the entire British army were trapped
on the beaches of Dunkirk. 330,000 were saved by British
civilians.
 On June 5, the Germans launched another offensive into
southern France.
 June 10, Mussolini declared war on France and invaded from
the south.
 The French surrendered on June 22.
 German armies occupied 3/5ths of France while Petain
established a Vichy France over the remainder.
The Course of WWII

Victory and Stalemate
 May 10, 1940, Churchill replaced Chamberlain.
 Germany hoped Britain would make peaces but Churchill
refused so Hitler prepared for an invasion of Britain.
 Hitler knew an invasion would only be possible if he
controlled the air.
 August 1940, the Luftwaffe launched an offensive against
British air and naval bases, harbors, communications
centers and war industries.
 The Ultra intelligence operation gave the British air force
information about the specific targets of German air attacks.
The Course of WWII

Victory and Stalemate
 In Sept. Hitler ordered a shift from military targets to massive
bombing of cities to break the British moral in retaliation to a
British bombing on Berlin.
 The British rebuilt their air strength.
 By the end of Sept., Germany lost the Battle of Britain.
 Hitler pursued a Mediterranean strategy which would involve
capturing Egypt and the Suez Canal and closing the
Mediterranean to British ships, cutting off Britain’s oil supply.
The strategy failed.
 July 1940 Hitler told his army leaders to begin preparations
for the invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Course of WWII

Victory and Stalemate
 To secure Hitler’s Balkan flank, German troops seized both
Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941.
 They invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
 By Nov. one Germany army group swept through the
Ukraine while a second was besieging Leningrad; a third
approached Moscow.
 A counterattack in Dec. 1941 by the Soviets exhausted by
Nazi victories ended the year for the Germans.
The Course of WWII

The War in Asia
 Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl
Harbor in Hawaii.
 Dec 8 the U.S. declared war on Japan.
 3 days later Hitler declared war on the U.S.
 Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies and occupied
islands in the Pacific.
 By the spring of 1942 almost all of South East Asia and
much of the West Pacific had fallen into Japanese hands.
 Tokyo created the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
and announced its intention to liberate the colonial areas of
South East Asia from Western colonial rule.
The Course of WWII

The Turning Point of the War (1942-1943)
 The entry of the U.S. created the Grand Alliance that ultimately defeated
the Axis powers.
 The 3 major allies had to overcome some mutual suspicions.
 2 factors aided the process:
 Americans had to accepts the British and Soviet contention that the
defeat of Germany should be first priority for the U.S.
 U.S. increased the quantity of trucks, planes, and other arms they
sent to the British and Soviets.
 The tacit agreement of the 3 chief Allies to stress military operations
while ignoring political differences and larger strategic issues
concerning any postwar settlement.
The Course of WWII

The Turning Point of the War
 At the beginning of 1943, the Allies agreed to fight until the Axis powers
surrendered unconditionally.
 Reinforcements in North Africa enabled the Afrika Korps under General
Rommel to break through the British defenses in Egypt and advance
toward Alexandria.
 Spring 1942 a renewed German offensive in the Soviet union led to the
capture of the entire Crimea.
 In North Africa British forces stopped Rommel’s troops at El Alamein in
the summer of 1942.
 In Nov. 1942 British and American forces invaded French North Africa
and forced the German and Italian troops to surrender in May 1943.
The Course of WWII

The Turning Point of the War
 Between Nov. 1942 and Feb. 1943 German troops were stopped in
Stalingrad, then encircled, and finally forced to surrender on Feb. 2,
1943.
 The entire German 6th Army of 300,00 men was lost.
 By Feb. 1943, German forces in the Soviet Union were back to their
positions of June 1942.
 In the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 7-8, 1942, American naval forces
stopped the Japanese advance and temporarily relieved Australia of the
threat of an invasion.
 June 4, at the Battle of Midway Island, American planes destroyed all 4
Japanese aircraft carriers and established naval superiority in the Pacific.
The Course of WWII

The Last Years of the War
 After the Axis forces surrendered in Tunisia on May 13, 1943
the Allies crossed the Mediterranean and carried war to Italy.
 After taking Sicily, Allied troops began the invasion of the
mainland of Italy in Sept.
 Rome did not fall to the Allies till June 4, 1944.
 Allies tricked Germans into believing that the invasion would
come on the flat plains of North France.
 Instead the Allies, under command of Eisenhower, landed 5
assault divisions on the Normandy beaches on June 6.
 Forces established a beachhead.
The Course of WWII

The Last Years of the War
 Within 3 months they had landed 2 million men and a halfmillion vehicles that pushed inland and broke through
German defensive lines.
 Allied troops moved south and east and liberated Paris by
Aug.
 Battle of the Bulge showed the Allies advance.
 By March 1945 Allied armies crossed the Rhine Rivers and
advanced further into Germany.
 At the end of April, Allied forces in North Germany moved
toward the Elbe River, where they linked up with the Soviets.
The Course of WWII

The Last Years of the War
 German forces were defeated by the Soviets at the Battle of
Kursk (July 5-12) the greatest tank battle of WWII.
 Germans lost 18 of their best panzer divisions.
 Soviets occupied Ukraine by 1943.
 Soviets occupied Warsaw in Jan. 1945 and entered Berlin in
April.
 Jan. 1945 Hitler moved to a bunker under Berlin. He
committed suicide on April 30.
 May 7, German commanders surrendered.
The Course of WWII

The Last Years of the War
 Beginning in 1943, American forces had gone on the
offensive and advanced across the Pacific.
 Truman and his advisors became convinced that American
troops might suffer casualties so they dropped the atomic
bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 Japanese surrendered on Aug 14.
 In WWII 17 million died in battle. 18 million civilians
perished. Total losses estimated at 50 million.
Map of Germany’s Expansion
The New Order

The Nazi Empire
 Europe was split in 2 ways:
 Some states were directly annexed by Germany and made
into German provinces.
 Most of Europe was administered by German officials
combined with indirect control from collaborationist
regimes.
 Racial considerations played an important role in how
conquered peoples were treated in the Nazi New Order.
 German civil administrations were established in Norway,
Denmark, and the Netherlands because those people were
considered Aryan.
The New Order

The Nazi Empire
 Inferior Latin peoples were given military administration.
 By 1843 occupied territories of northern and western Europe
were exploited for material goods and workers for Germany’s
war needs.
 Nazis began to implement their racial program soon after the
conquest of Poland.
 Himmler was put in charge of German resettlement plans in
the east.
 His task was to evacuate inferior people and replace them
with Germans.
The New Order

The Nazi Empire
 By 1942, 2 million ethnic Germans had been settled in
Poland.
 After war the Poles, Ukrainians, and Soviets would become
slave labor and German people would settle on the land to
Germanize them.
 In Eastern Europe, economic exploitation was direct and
severe.
 Germans seized raw materials, machines and food, leaving
only enough to maintain local peoples at a bare
subsistence level.
The New Order

The Nazi Empire
 In Western Europe military supplies, and important raw
materials were taken.
 Labor shortages led to mobilization of foreign labor for
Germany.
 4 million Soviet prisoners of war became a source of labor
but 3 million died from neglect.
 In 1942 a special office was created to recruit labor for
German farms and industries.
 By 1944 7 million foreign workers were laboring in Germany.
The New Order

Resistance Movements
 German policies toward conquered peoples lead to the
emergence of resistance movements throughout Europe.
 Some anti-Nazi groups from occupied countries, such as the
Free French movement under Charles de Gaulle, created
governments-in-exile in London.
 In Yugoslavia Josip Broz, known as Tito, led a band of
guerrillas against German occupation forces.
 Communists throughout Europe assumed leadership roles in
underground resistance movements, which led to conflict
with other local resistance groups.
The New Order

Resistance Movements
 Women also joined these movements in large numbers.
 Women served as message carriers, planted bombs in Nazi
headquarters, assassinated Nazi officers, published and spread
anti-German underground newspapers, spied on German
military movements and positions, and used shopping bags to
carry weapons, medicines, and money to help their causes.
 The White Rose movement in Germany involved an attempt
by a small group at the University of Munich to distribute
pamphlets denouncing the Nazi regime. The group was
executed.
The New Order

Resistance Movements
 Communist resistance groups were mostly crushed by the
Gestapo.
 Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg believed that only
the elimination of Hitler would bring the overthrow of the
Nazi regime.
 On July 20, 1944, a bomb planted by Stauffenberg in Hitler’s
East Prussian headquarters exploded, but it failed to kill
Hitler.
 5,000 people were executed, and Hitler remained in control
of Germany.
The New Order

The Holocaust
 Racial struggle was a key element in Hitler’s ideology: Aryan
Vs Jews
 By the beginning of 1939, Nazi policy focused on promoting
“emigration” of German Jews from Germany.
 Once the war began in September 1939, there was discussion
of the Madagascar Plan, which aspired to the mass
shipment of Jews to the island of Madagascar. It was
impracticable.
 The SS was given responsibility for the Final Solution to the
Jewish problem– the annihilation of the Jewish people.
The New Order

The Holocaust
 Heydrich was given administrative responsibility for the Final
Solution.
 Heydrich ordered the special strike forces (Einsatzgruppen)
that he had created to round up all Polish Jews and
concentrate them in ghettos.
 In June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen were given new
responsibilities as mobile killing units. This created moral
problems amongst the SS executioners.
 The Nazis opted for the systematic annihilation of the
European Jewish population in specialty built death camps.
The New Order

The Holocaust
 Jews from occupied countries would be collected, packed into freight
trains, and shipped to Poland where 6 extermination centers were built.
 The largest and most infamous was Auschwitz-Birkenau.
 Medical technicians chose Zyklon B as the most effective gas for quickly
killing large numbers of people in gas chambers.
 To inform party and state officials of the procedures for the Final
Solution the Wannsee Conference was held outside of Berlin on Jan. 20,
1942.
 Heydrich outlined the steps: Europe will be combed through for Jews
who would be brought to transit ghettos to be transported farther to the
east.
 The conference worked out all bureaucratic details so that officials would
cooperate fully in the final elimination of the Jews.
The New Order

The Holocaust
 Shipments of Jews depended on the cooperation of
Germany’s Transport Ministry.
 About 30% of the arrivals at Auschwitz were sent to a labor
camp; the remainder went to gas chambers. After they had
been gassed the bodies were burned in the crematoria.
 The victims’ goods and bodies were used for economic gain.
 Some inmates were subjected to “medical” experiments.
 90% of the Jewish populations of Poland, the Baltic
countries, and Germany were exterminated.
 The Holocaust was responsible for the death of nearly 2 out
of every 3 European Jews.
Gas Chambers and Crematoria
Auschwitz
The New Order


The Holocaust
 The Nazis were also responsible for the deliberate death of
the Gypsies of Europe and homosexuals.
The New Order in Asia
 Japan hoped to use its new territories to meet its needs for
raw materials as well as to serve as an outlet for Japanese
manufactured goods.
 To provide a structure for the arrangement, Japanese leaders
set up the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
 Independent governments under Japanese tutelage were
established in Burma, the Dutch East Indies, Vietnam, and
the Philippines.
The New Order

The New Order in Asia
 The economic resources of the colonies were exploited for
the benefit of the Japanese war machine, while natives were
recruited to serve in local military units or were conscripted
to work on public works projects.
 Tens of thousands of Korean women were forced to serve as
“comfort women” for Japanese troops.
 In building the Burma-Thailand railway in 1943, the Japanese
used 361,000 workers. An inadequate diet and hard work in
an unhealthy climate led to the death of 102,000 workers by
the time the railway was completed.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 By the summer of 1944, fully 55% of the British people were
in the armed forces or civilian “war work.”
 Most British women under 40 were called to do war work of
some kind.
 The number of women in agriculture doubled as “land
girls” performed agricultural labor usually undertaken by
men.
 The British government encouraged the “Dig for Victory”
campaign to increase food production. Also encouraged the
“Grow Your Own Food” campaigns but Britain still faced
food shortages.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 During the war the British placed much emphasis on a
planned economy.
 The British made substantial gains in manufacturing war
materials.
 Known to the Soviets as the Great Patriotic War, the
German-Soviet war witnessed the greatest land battles in
history.
 Stalin created a system of “supercentralization,” by which he
directed military and political affairs. All civil and military
organizations were subjected to the control of the
Communist Party and the Soviet Police.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 The initial defeats of the Soviet Union led to drastic
emergency mobilization measures that affected the civilian
population.
 Leningrad experienced 900 days of siege.
 The factories in the western part of the Soviet Union were
dismantled and shipped to the interior.
 The widespread military, industrial, and economic
mobilization created another Industrial Revolution for the
Soviet Union. Stalin labeled it a “battle of machines.”
 Soviet civilians experienced shortages of food and housing.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 Soviet women worked in industries, mines, and railroads.
They dug anti-tank ditches and work as air-raid wardens.
 Soviet women also functioned as snipers and as aircrews in
bomber squadrons.
 The female pilots who helped defeat the Germans at
Stalingrad were known as the “Night Witches.”
 Soviet peasants 60% of the military forces and were also
expected to feed the people and the Red Army.
 The mobilization of the U.S. had a great impact on American
social and economic developments.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 The American economy was never completely mobilized.
 After a production rate of 6 ships a day and $6 billion worth
of other military equipment a month, many small factories
were shut down due to overproduction.
 Boomtowns were created, which caused a shortage of
houses, health facilities, and schools.
 People migrated to the industrial cities looking for work.
 The presence of African American in areas where they had
not lived before led to racial tensions and sometimes racial
riots. In Detroit, white mobs attacked African Americans.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 Japanese Americans were moved to camps encircled by
barbed wire and required to take loyalty oaths.
 Hitler was aware of the importance of the home front. He
believed that the collapse of the home front in WWI had
caused Germany’s defeat.
 To maintain the morale of the home front during the first 2
years of the war, Hitler refused to convert production to
armaments.
 In 1942, Hitler finally ordered a massive increase in
armaments and the size of the army.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 Albert Speer was made minister for armaments and
munitions in 1942. By eliminating waste and rationalizing
procedures, he was able to triple the production.
 A total mobilization of the economy was not implemented
until 1944, when schools, theaters, and cafes were closed and
Speer was permitted to use all remaining resources.
 Nazi resistance to female employment declined as the war
progressed.
 Many women resisted regular employment. Even the
introduction of labor conscription for women failed.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 Wartime Japan was highly mobilized. The government et up a
planning board to guarantee its control over all national
resources.
 Traditional habits of obedience and hierarchy were
emphasized to encourage citizens to sacrifice their resources.
 Especially important was the code of the bushido, the old
code of morality of the samurai. It was revived during the
nationalistic fervor of the 1930s.
 The code emphasized the obligation to honor and defend
emperor, country, and family and to sacrifice one’s life if one
failed in the sacred mission.
The Home Front

The Mobilization of Peoples
 Young Japanese were encouraged to volunteer en masse to
serve as pilots in the suicide missions, known as kamikaze,
against U.S. battleships.
 Japanese women were encouraged to bear more children and
to espouse the slogans of the Greater Japanese Women’s
Association.
 General Tojo opposed female employment.
The Home Front

Frontline Civilians: The Bombing of Cities
 Bombing was used against nonhuman military targets, against
enemy troops, and against civilian populations.
 Beginning in early Sept. 1940, the German Luftwaffe
subjected London and other British cities and towns to
nightly air raids, making the Blitz a national experience.
 On Nov. 14, 1940, the Luftwaffe destroyed hundreds of shops
and 100 acres of the city center of Coventry.
 Churchill and his advisers believed that destroying German
communities would break civilian morale and bring victory.
The Home Front

Frontline Civilians: The Bombing of Cities
 Major bombing raids began in 1942 under the direction of
Arthur Harris.
 On May 31, 1942, Cologne became the first German city to
be subjected to an attack by 1,000 bombers.
 American planes flew daytime missions aimed at the
precision bombing of transportation facilities and war
industries, while the British Bomber Command continued
nighttime bombing of all German cities with populations
over 100,000.
 These bombings created firestorms that swept destructive
paths through cities.
The Home Front

Frontline Civilians: The Bombing of Cities
 4 raids on Hamburg in Aug. 1943, obliterated half the city’s
buildings, and killed 50,000 civilians.
 The bombing of Dresden from Feb. 13 to 15, 1945, created
a firestorm that may have killed as many as 100,000
inhabitants and refugees.
 The Allied Strategic Bombing Survey showed that the
production of war materiel actually increased between 1942
and 1944. Allied raids only cut production by 7%.
 Fearful of German attempts to make a superbomb through
the use of Uranium, pushed the U.S. to create the atomic
bomb.
The Home Front

Frontline Civilians: The Bombing of Cities
 Under direction of Oppenheimer in Los Alamos, New
Mexico, Allied scientist built and tested the first atomic bomb
by the summer of 1945.
 President Truman and his advisers feared that Japanese
fanaticism might mean a million American casualties.
 This led them to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (Aug.
6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9). 70,000 buildings in Hiroshima
were flattened. 140,000 inhabitants died by the end of 1945.
By the end of 1950, another 50,000 died from radiation.
Aftermath of the War: Cold War


The Cold War stemmed from military, political, and ideological
differences, especially between the Soviet Union and the United
States.
The Conference at Tehran
 Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, the leaders of the Big Three
of the Grand Alliances, met at Tehran in Nov. 1943 to decide
that future course of the war.
 Churchill had wanted British and American forces to follow
up their North African and Italian campaigns by an indirect
attack on Germany through the Balkans.
Aftermath of the War: Cold War


The Conference at Tehran
 Stalin and Roosevelt overruled Churchill and argued
successfully for an American-British invasion of the
continent through France.
 The acceptance of this plan meant that Soviet and BritishAmerican forces would meet in defeated Germany along a
north-south dividing line and that eastern Europe would be
liberated by Soviet forces.
The Yalta Conference
 Stalin was deeply suspicious of the Western powers and
desired a buffer to protect the Soviet Union from possible
future Western aggression.
Aftermath of the War: Cold War

The Yalta Conference
 Roosevelt was moving away from the notion of spheres of
influence to the ideal of self-determination.
 The Grand Alliance approved the “Declaration on Liberated
Europe.”
 Roosevelt sought Soviet military help against Japan.
 Roosevelt agreed to Stalin’s price: possession of Sakhalin
and the Kurile Islands as well as 2 warm-water ports and
railroad rights in Manchuria.
 Both Churchill and Stalin accepted Roosevelt’s plan for a
United Nations organization.
Aftermath of the War: Cold War

The Yalta Conference
 The Big Three reaffirmed that Germany must surrender
unconditionally and created four occupation zones.
 The French were given a zone carved out of the British and
American zones.
 German reparations were set at $20 billion.
 A provisional government would be established with
members of both Lublin Poles and the London Poles in
Poland.
 Stalin agreed to free elections in the future to determine a
new government.
The Division of Germany
Aftermath of the War: Cold War

Intensifying Differences
 The Allied Powers’ only common aim was the defeat of
Nazism.
 From the perspective of the Soviets, the United States’
termination of Lend-Lease air before the war was over and
its failure to respond to the Soviet request for a $6 billion
loan for reconstructive exposed Western desire to keep the
Soviet state weak.
 On the American side, the Soviet Union’s failure to fulfill its
Yalta pledge on the “Declaration on Liberated Europe” as
applied to eastern Europe set a dangerous precedent.
Aftermath of the War: Cold War


Intensifying Differences
 The Soviets engineered a coup and installed a new
government under the Communist Peter Groza in Romania.
 The Soviets sabotaged the Polish settlement by arresting the
London Poles and their sympathizers and placing the Lublin
Poles in power.
The Potsdam Conference
 During the conference, Truman received word that the
atomic bomb had been successfully tested, which stiffened
the resolve against the Soviets.
 Truman demanded free elections throughout eastern Europe.
Aftermath of the War: Cold War


The Potsdam Conference
 Stalin sought absolute military security. To him, it could only be gained by
the presence of Communist states in eastern Europe.
Emergence of the Cold War
 James Byrnes proposed a 25-year disarmament of Germany, the Soviet
Union rejected it. Many saw it as proof of Stalin’s plans to expand and
create a Communist East German state.
 The foreshadowing of an independent West Germany seemed to be a
direct threat to the Soviet security in Europe.
 Churchill declared that “an iron curtain” had “descended across the
continent,” dividing Germany and Europe into 2 hostile camps.
 Stalin branded Churchill’s speech a “call to war with the Soviet Union.”